A growing area of Internet use involves social events in which information provided by users is made available to other users. Examples of social events facilitated by the use of an Internet service include online networking, organizing social gatherings and sharing lists of available goods and professional services available for purchase.
For example, a service facilitating online networking may provide users a mechanism to post information about their hobbies or interests. Social networking services often allow users to share photographs, videos and information of interest to them in any other media. The service may then provide other users tools to search for and meet people who share common interests or to maintain contact with existing friends, family and colleagues.
Other services may help users organize social gatherings. Such gatherings often take the form of a party or a meeting in a public place, which could be a restaurant or arena for a spectator event (such as a sporting event or concert). The service may provide a group of people invited to the gathering with a mechanism to share information, such as the date, time, purpose or geographic location of the gathering. A service operating over the Internet allows users to disseminate information about the gathering, and solicit attendance from those invited to the event.
Other Internet services arrange information about goods and professional services in a fashion that allows interested parties to supply or find information of interest to them. For example, the information may be organized in lists, each relating to a specific type of good or professional service. Users of such social lists can post items for sale or trade, search for items to buy, or search and post professional services available.
Consequently, a wide range of information about social events can be available, whether that information relates to a planned gathering, an item for sale by a user, or a user who would like to meet others with similar interests. Services designed to facilitate sharing of information may make that information available to the entire online community. Though, some services are intended to allow only specific users within a social network to post or access information relating to social events.